Solemnity
by hoping2improve
Summary: Sesshomaru has been left only with Jaken and his political duties after the departure of Rin. That and his rarely-voiced thoughts. What happens when his derelict sister pays him a visit? Will he grant her strange request? No pairing. One-shot.


**Title: **Solemnity

**Author: **Hoping2improve (Punkreader)

**Rating: **K

**Fandom: **InuYasha

**No Pairing**

**Prompt: **"Reflection"

**Author's Note: **This features Sesshomaru in his private moments, after the end of the manga, with the appearance of two of my OCs. The piece, however, is meant to focus on him, as a tiny, tiiny window into his character. I hope you enjoy it. Feedback and criticism are appreciated. Thank you!

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><p>Solemnity: A One-Shot<p>

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><p>He had done his duty that day, he knew that, and his father's court would know it. Nonetheless, the lord paced about his spartan rooms, dissatisfied and restless.<p>

Anger without a face settled over him, distorting his normally smooth features for no more than a second before he replaced his icy calm mask. The feeling itself, however, was anything but. It was the same anger as always troubled him when he thought of his younger siblings - bastards both, and halflings.

_...Why must I always hold back? Why can't I ever finish them off...? What is it...Why...__**why did that bastard get everything I never could**__? What in the seven hells could father have seen in that little whelp - damned ruffian and no sense of place. Why do I get nothing no matter how much better I prove myself?_

He shook his head to clear it of such thoughts - they never lead to anything good, and neutrality could be completely forgotten. He, a grown man and a full-blooded demon, should be beyond such childish things. But were they really so childish, his desires and his resentments? To some, perhaps. _He_was not "some."

Pulling a hand over his face, he strode over to the far wall and simply stood in front of it. He wished, for the thousandth time, that his young ward were still here. She could always manage to calm his nerves with her silly, human actions.

The sound of a servant scuttling down the hall broke his thoughts, and in minutes, there was a knock and an introduction at his door.

He did not turn as the announcement was made. He could guess who it was - the stench of the impurity filled the room like smoke.

"M'lord, a visitor who requested adamently to see you. ..._She_begs an audience with you." The stress was clearly that of discomfort - the servant was attempting to not say "it," though it would have been far more fitting.

He remained silent, hearing the mumbling of an unfamiliar voice, and the wafting of a similarly new scent.

"...And another, my lord, with the..._woman_, who is being rather forceful about entering as well. Will you grant them admittance and an audience, Lord Sesshomaru?" came the rasping, irritated voice.

A quiet, controlled, "Enter, and be done here," was all he said. He remained with his back facing his guests, as they walked into the room.

He heard both kneel, in the proper waiting position. _So the bitch_ has _learned some manners..._

"What do you want, little sister?"

Rising of both, whispering of directions to his sibling. _What is the matter with her - does she have that little sense?_ An uncertain lurching followed by quick, soft steps. _What kind of folly is this?_

A hand grabbed his shoulder, and forced him to turn. For once, he did not resist, curious to see why her patterns had changed so.

A brief glimpse of bandaged eyes and a stump at the shoulder greeted him before the strong fingers roamed his face, feeling it. The woman standing just behind her...a human. Holding onto his sister, hands going places where a friend's would not. _They are... _he began, the thought banished by the sudden covering. Her fingers were hard and cracked, very unpleasant.

A bitter, alcohol-harshened voice met his ears, different from the overconfident and ever-defiant one he had expected.

"I want from you, older brother, death, and your taking of my second chance at life through your healing blade. I want you to kill me, and to leave me there, to leave me where at last I can be in some measure of peace."

That, he found, he could not oblige. Instead, he struck her with the flat blade of his quickly-drawn Tenseiga, throwing her back. Perhaps the blow would knock some sense into the damned woman.

He realized in this moment, reflecting on his father's words that in the most strange riddles lie the simplest answers, that he could not kill her. He could not kill her because she was vulnerable, and she was, in a sense, his own personal charge. Was she his ward now?

He did not wish to find out, to surrender to any feelings that might compromise him - or his sister - now. In that frame of mind, he dismissed her. She left silently, but he felt the intensity of her disappointment and sorrow. What had caused it, he could only guess. He was unaware that she would not meet him again - only as a spirit in the Underworld. Only as one lost among many, screaming and reaching out to him for release... But he would not hear her voice there crying out in agony as so many others; he would hear her laughing. Finally, she would recieve the peace she craved.

-FERTIG-


End file.
